Team

WHO WE ARE

Tyler E. Gellasch

Tyler Gellasch, co-Founder of Myrtle Makena, LLC, is a financial services policy professional and securities lawyer with senior-level public and private sector experience. Tyler currently serves as Executive Director of the Healthy Markets Association, a non-profit organization focused on improving the capital markets.

Tyler is a well-known capital markets and derivatives expert, who is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events. His analyses and opinions have been sought by Congress, non-profits, businesses, law firms, and the press. Tyler has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Bloomberg, Politico, Pensions & Investments, BNA, and other leading press.

Tyler’s public service included five years in the U.S. Senate, first as Counsel for securities, banking, and tax matters for Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), and later as Senior Counsel to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) under Chairman Levin. During his time in the Senate, Tyler was deeply involved in the federal government's response to the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, including major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Shortly after joining the Senate, Tyler played an instrumental role in crafting the so-called “Volcker Rule,” and advised on the unprecedented rescue of the domestic automotive industry. Later, Gellasch worked to create, build bipartisan support for, and fund the State Small Business Credit Initiative, which was included in the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. This new and innovative grant program facilitates unique public-private partnerships involving state and local economic development corporations, lenders, and small businesses, and has funded thousands of small business loans resulting in tens of thousands of jobs. Prior to leaving Capitol Hill, Tyler also played key roles in developing additional high-profile pieces of legislation, including portions of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of 2012, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, and numerous corporate tax bills. Gellasch also assisted with several Senate hearings and reports, including a landmark hearing in December 2010 on the stability and integrity of the U.S. capital markets and a hearing and bipartisan report in November 2014 on banks’ involvement with physical commodities.

Tyler’s government service also includes a year as Counsel to SEC Commissioner Kara M. Stein, whom he advised on all matters before the Commission from 2013-2014. While there, his areas of focus included implementation of the Volcker Rule, derivatives reforms, corporate disclosure and proxy reforms, investment adviser registration and examinations, Regulation A reforms, Regulation D reforms, investor arbitration, and equities and fixed income market reforms.

During his time in government service, Gellasch has developed strong relationships with principals and staff at all major financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Financial Research, Treasury Department, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and numerous state regulators. Tyler also maintains strong bipartisan relationships with numerous Congressional Committees and Members' offices, including the Senate Banking, Finance, Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and Armed Services Committees.

Tyler is deeply involved in community economic development, and is a Board member of both the Steel Valley Authority, as well as Heartland Capital Strategies. Tyler is a frequent lecturer on financial regulation, and guest teaches a class at Duke University School of Law.

Tyler, who is originally from Upstate New York, performed his undergraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Thereafter, he earned his Masters degree in Economics and his law degree from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Nicole M. Tichon

Nicole Tichon, co-Founder of Myrtle Makena, LLC, is a longtime consultant with over 20 years of experience working in both the private and public sectors, serving government, association, and non-governmental organization clients. Nicole has a proven track record of helping organizations with strategic planning, program management, communications, process improvement, and program evaluation.

Nicole has built successful, issue-driven campaigns. She helped build and led a national coalition comprised of more than 100 members focusing on financial transparency and tax policy. Most recently, Nicole worked as Executive Director of the Tax Justice Network-USA, where she led the formation of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparence (FACT) Coalition. In those roles, she helped establish organizational and coalition governance, conducted strategic planning processes, developed the budget, raised operational and program funds, and managed all internal and external communications. Prior to joining TJN-USA, Tichon worked as the Tax and Budget Reform Advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG).

In her role at U.S. PIRG, Nicole worked for increasing transparency of the Federal Reserve and testified before Congress in 2009 regarding the lack of transparency of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (bank bailout). She has appeared on national and international panels and at conferences on tax reform, and budget issues. Nicole’s numerous reports, articles and commentary have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, AP, New York Times, Bloomberg, on Fox News, ABC News, MSNBC, CNBC, Al Jezeera, USA Today Online, The Hill, Yahoo Finance, Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, among many other state and regional papers. Nicole's ability to build diverse coalitions was showcased by her ability to work across ideological and partisan lines to co-author the first Toward Common Ground: Bridging the Political Divide to Reduce Spending report, which was released jointly by left-leaning U.S. PIRG and right-leaning National Taxpayers Union.

Prior to her public interest work, Nicole was a Senior Consultant for Strategy and Operations at Deloitte Consulting. During her Deloitte tenure, Nicole provided process, technical, and budget evaluation tools, as well as strategic planning services, to agency executives at the state and federal levels of government.

Nicole began her career as an intern in the Executive Office of the President, where she assisted the speechwriting staff for both the Office of the Vice President and the Office of the President. Tichon thereafter worked on Capitol Hill, for Representative Norman Sisisky and Senator Carl Levin.

Nicole completed her undergraduate studies in Political Science and Communications at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned her Master’s degree in Public Policy and Management, concentrating on Financial Management, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.